County Will Buy Historic Hotel

FLORIDA - The State - In Brief

January 13, 2004

MIAMI -- A crumbling segregation-era hotel that once played host to Martin Luther King Jr., Muhammad Ali and Duke Ellington and served as a focal point for Miami's black community will be purchased and renovated into a cultural and business center.

Miami-Dade County commissioners have agreed to provide $450,000 for the purchase of the run-down property in the struggling neighborhood of Brownsville, said Larry Capp, head of Miami-Dade County's community relations board.

The property, rescued from the wrecking ball in 2002, will be managed by a trust that's coordinating efforts to buy the hotel and renovate it. The building was one of the few places where blacks could stay and feel comfortable in Miami during the 1950s and early 1960s.

"It speaks of that time in our history, that transition from segregation to the integration movement and the civil-rights movement of the 1960s," Ivan Rodriguez, head of the historic preservation board, said Monday.

The money approved by the commissioners Dec. 18 is enough to buy the hotel, but renovations will cost between $2 million and $4 million.